Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Great Lyre from Ur: A Literary and Iconographic Study

In the autumn of 1922, C. Leonard Woolley and his colleagues in the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia began excavations at the site of Ur. Almost immediately they discovered the cemetery, but it was not until 1926 that work began in earnest on what Woolley termed the “Royal Tombs.” Generally dated to the Early Dynastic Period (circa 3000 - 2340 BCE), the sixteen graves Woolley called “royal” have now been specifically placed in time to between 2600-2450 BCE (Early Dynastic III) and have provided a plethora of information about the early stages of socio-political development and burial rituals in Sumerian city-states. It was during the second of the four seasons in which excavations occurred in the Royal Cemetery precinct (1927-8), that the tomb of an unnamed king came to light, officially designated by the Expedition as PG 789. The death pit associated with the burial contained many superb examples of grave goods. Among the archaeological treasures found inside this burial was a bull head lyre, the Great Lyre of Ur. It is the largest of several lyres found among the artifacts of the various Royal Tombs and unique for its representation of the subject matter on its inlaid front panel. In this paper, it is my intent to perform an iconographic and literary comparative study of the Great Lyre (particularly the bull head protome and shell inlaid panel affixed to the front of the Great Lyre’s soundbox) and the relationship of this iconography to Sumerian literary classics such as The Epic of Gilgamesh.Bachelor of Art